Welcome - About Live and Loud!

Live and Loud! began as a fortnightly internet radio show taking old unreleased live concert recordings I could find and working to repair and improve them - fixing tape hiss, noise, tape drop out, clicks, speed variations, defects - before improving the sound quality by EQing the sound to bring out the instruments as clearly as possible. These are now made directly available to download for free to reach as many fans of the music as possible.

Depending on the quality of the original recording, these can often be made to sound almost like commercial recordings - but of course I can't guarantee that for every show. What I can guarantee is it will sound far better than the original files available which have been floating around the internet and on bootleg recordings for many years. Almost all are either "soundboard" recordings taken directly from the mixing desk used at the gig on the night - or old FM radio recordings. A few gigs, if they are of special historical importance, make an appearance even if they were recorded from the audience.

Do your ears a favour and listen on headphones or good speakers to get most benefit - laptop speakers will always sound pretty poor by comparison.

All shows still available are listed, including a link to download the remastered show for free. If you want the shows in lossless format, or as separate tagged files, head over to the Rewards for Donations page and see how you can get a lot for very little!

And finally... These are great fun to listen to but DO NOT replace original releases - support these artists and buy their music. There is nothing you can go and buy in a regular record store here. If a gig is made available as a regular release, then it will be removed (as a couple have been already).

Pages

Thursday, 21 January 2016

The Specials formed in Coventry in 1977 and after some lineup changes and the formation of the 2-Tone record label by the band’s leader Jerry Dammers, saw their first single, Gangsters, become a top 10 hit in the UK in the Summer of 1979. October saw the release of their first album, also called The Specials, which featured a number of tracks you can hear in tonight’s show. In December 1979, at a time when their 2nd single, A Message To You Rudy, was becoming their 2nd top 10 hit, and a month before they went straight to #1 with The Special AKA Live! EP, featuring Too Much Too Young.

A brief word about this show - I think it was originally for French radio, as someone is babbling away in French in between some of the songs - I’ve taken that out without losing the songs but some of the gaps between songs are very short as a result! Maybe I should have left it in but it was fairly loud and annoying to me. So its a fairly breathless gallop through the set for about 40 minutes from 2Tone’s finest!

This show is dedicated to the memory of John Bradbury, The Specials’ drummer, who sadly passed away at the age of 62 over Xmas 2015.*Update 2018* While
preparing this old show as separate files for a donator to the site, I
found I could now improve the sound quality further, over what I’d
originally done to the recording several years ago. You can now download
this new version (as of 2018) HERE as 1 new 320kbps MP3 file.

If you would like to have separate tagged MP3s, or even lossless files in FLAC format of the new version, head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs.

Setlist(Dawning Of A) New Era Do The Dog Monkey Man Concrete Jungle Too Hot Doesn't Make It Alright Too Much Too Young Guns Of Navarone Little Bitch A Message To You Rudy Nite Klub Gangsters Long Shot Kick The Bucket Skinhead Moonstomp Madness

Friday, 8 January 2016

The new 2016 season of Live and Loud! kicks off with Japan, who were touring the country of Japan after releasing their first 2 albums Adolescent Sex and Obscure Alternatives, in 1978. They were already looking ahead and starting to introduce a more electronic sound into their demos for what would be their 3rd album Quiet Life, released at the end of 1979. You can start to hear that influence in the early version of European Son, included in this live set, which otherwise consists of songs from their first 2 albums.

Someone had already applied far too much noise and hiss reduction to the recording I had access to but I've done what I can to lessen the impact of the noise that added. This has polished up a treat.

The show is available for download HEREas 1 MP3 file. Or, if you would like to have separate tagged MP3s, or even lossless files in FLAC format, head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs.

Friday, 1 January 2016

Live and Loud! will be broadcast
fortnightly (ie every 2 weeks) on Tuesday evenings on Radio Happy,
starting next week - 5 January 2016.

These are the shows for January...(timings are UK timings):-

Tuesday 5 January 7pm - Japan, live at the Budokan, Japan, 6 March 1979.

Tuesday 19 January 7pm - The Specials, live from The Lyceum 1979

All Live and Loud! shows begin at 7pm with a live hour of suitable music - the gigs themselves start 1 hour later at 8pm.

Shows will be uploaded to their own page on here for online streaming/downloading within 7 days AFTER broadcast in the highest possible quality (the live radio streams are subject to some quality restrictions).

Donations

All shows are free to download of course! However, if you do wish to donate towards the site's running costs (even £1) you can get properly tagged and separated FLACs and MP3s for every show in return! Check out the "Rewards for Donations" tab for details. You can donate at this link. Thank you.